Category: music

According to a German company which specializes in booking American orchestras into European venues, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra is planning two major tours of the continent in 2005 and 2006, despite not having a music director. The plans call for Hans Graf to conduct the PSO on the first tour, with Andrew Davis leading the way in late summer 2006. It is highly unusual for an American orchestra to tour without its music director, but the PSO may be attempting to take advantage of the worldwide reputation it earned under departing MD Mariss Jansons as one of the U.S.’s best, if not best-known, ensembles.

“The Detroit Symphony Orchestra has found its new top administrator at the head of the largest ballet company in America. Anne Parsons, 46, general manager of the New York City Ballet, has been hired as the executive director of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. The appointment comes at a crucial moment for the DSO, which is coping with a $2.2-million accumulated deficit, searching for a successor to music director Neeme Jarvi and developing a long-range vision for the $60-million Max M. Fisher Music Center, which the orchestra opened to great acclaim in October. The DSO has been without its top administrator since former president and executive director Emil Kang, in the wake of the deficit, resigned in December after 3 1/2 years at the helm.”

The Colorado Symphony Orchestra has reportedly settled on conductor/pianist Jeffrey Kahane as its next music director, succeeding Marin Alsop. Kahane also heads up the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, recently founded a new music festival in northern California, and is a frequent guest with many major American orchestras. There is no word yet on when his tenure with the CSO will begin.

“A thief recently broke into a car and made off with two 1840s violins owned by musicians in the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. More than two weeks after the April 5 theft, police have not recovered the rare instruments, which are worth tens of thousands of dollars.” The theft was particularly brazen, taking place while the instruments’ owners were less than a block away buying a parking pass for their car.

For the last couple of decades, the ultraconservatove jazz movement known to some as neoclassicism and to others as “The Cult of Wynton Marsalis” has had a profound influence on rising young musicians. But Marsalis’s influence seems to be slipping, as a new generation of jazzers raised on hip-hop and R&B comes of age. Some of the new breed feel that the neoclassicisists confuse history with tradition, and are eager to branch out into new realms of musical exploration.

“Whatever Platonic fascinations they might hold, supremely gifted young musicians also live in a bruising real world of managers, agents, recording contracts, talented and carefully cultivated rivals, standard-bearing critics and a listening public fine-tuned by CDs, pirated downloads and the world-wide whir of Internet music sites and chat rooms.” In other words, do not envy the prodigy: all the talent in the world can’t spare him from the inevitable backlash of a world obsessed with the rapid rise and fall of celebrities. Case in point: the omnipresent Lang Lang…

Scottish Opera’s day of reckoning has come, as its funding fate is being decided. “It has been told it must repay a £4 million advance against its £7.5 million funding from the Scottish Arts Council. One plan on the table is said to involve as many as 80 job losses, including the opera’s staff chorus.”

The Philadelphia Orchestra is renewing its commitment to performing free summer concerts in underserved areas of its home community. The performances, which were briefly suspended last summer due to lack of funds, draw thousands of people to unconventional venues to hear one of the world’s top orchestras, and music director Christoph Eschenbach has been said to be a key proponent of the idea. But it apparently took the financial security of a $50 million pledge from the Annenberg Foundation to make the orchestra, which has struggled with debt over the past several seasons, confident enough to move ahead with the three free concerts, which will cost the organization $375,000 in total.

“Plans for a £90m refurbishment of London’s Royal Festival Hall have been unveiled, with the news that £73m of the total sum has been raised so far… The Arts Council have given £25m to the project, while Heritage Lottery’s donation is £20m.” The aim is to give the hall an entirely new look, and in the process, create a world-class acoustical venue for London, which despite multiple tries, has never managed to build one.

The San Antonio Symphony’s bankruptcy reorganization plan was approved by a federal judge this week, allowing the orchestra to move ahead with plans for a new season. Bankruptcy may be in the past, but so are many of the SAS’s old musicians, who have moved on to new jobs in new cities. Still, hopes are high for a rejuvenated ensemble. “The new operating plan includes a slimmed-down budget with a shorter season and lower pay and benefits for musicians. It also features a new management team and increased emphasis on marketing, sales, corporate sponsorships and decreased telemarketing expenses. The proposed budget for 2004-05, based on a 26-week season and 72 musicians, lists operating expenses of about $5.5 million.”